News from FRITES 8-29-08

(FRITES = France+Italia+España)

• L'Équipe: Gerolsteiner to disappear at the end of the season. The new Canadian team Cervelo might absorb part of their personnel.
• AS: Samuel Sánchez (Euskaltel), gold medalist in Beijing, won´t participate in the Vuelta, to prepare for Worlds. If you ask me, riding a week or so in the Vuelta would be good training. And a big dose of publicity for modest Euskaltel. Contador will do Vuelta, but not Worlds, whereas Bettini will do both.
• AS: The Vuelta leader's jersey might be red in 2009. Unipublic, the Vuelta's race promoter, wants its jersey to be different from the Tour's. A decision has not been made yet, but ASO, the Tour organizer and shareholder of Unipublic, likes the idea. The particular shade of red will be something like "Ferrari red." Unlike the French race, the Vuelta's leader jersey has made a tour through the rainbow over the years: orange in 1935-36, white (1941), orange (1942), red (1945), white with a stripe (1946-50), yellow (1955-1976), orange again (1977), yellow (1978-1998), and "gold" (1999-2008). (Wow, their jersey changes almost as often as UCVC's...) But everybody kept referring to the "gold" jersey as the "yellow jersey," so Unipublic wants to change it to something more unique.
  
• La Gazzetta dello Sport: Fabio Baldato retires. A crash at the Eneco Tour caused the fracture of his clavicle and hip. Baldato, 40, is the oldest rider in the pro peloton.